On the other hand, “Boogie Nights” is even more ambitious and provides a much more enjoyable experience as PTA explores the seedy world of the porn industry in the late 70s and early 80s. Like all his movies, the film is visually spectacular as PTA recreates the tacky world of the period, while introducing us to a series of memorable characters caught up in the wild world of porn. Unlike many of PTA’s other films, however, “Boogie Nights” also tells a coherent story that skillfully weaves together the lives of his characters and holds the audience’s attention through the end.

I recently re-watched the film for the umpteenth time and came away with several impressions:

Comeback Role for Burt Reynolds

The casting decisions here are flawless, and it all starts with Burt Reynolds as Jack Horner, the porn director who wants to be taken seriously as a filmmaker. Jack lives in a large, mid-century modern house with a large pool and bar in the back. It’s perfect for parties and porn shoots and just big enough for some of his regular actors and actresses to live there. Burt was 61 when he shot this film, sporting a salt & pepper hair piece and beard. He’s older and looks distinguished but still has sex appeal and loads of charisma. Jack serves as a sort of father-figure to the younger actors and actresses and Burt’s understated and nuanced portrayal of Jack is critical to this film. With that context, it was quite shocking to learn that Burt hated working with PTA and disliked the film.

The plot follows the rise and fall of a young, well-endowed kid who dreams of being a star. Mark Wahlberg does a fine job playing Eddie. He’s a sweet and friendly kid working as a dishwasher in a club in the Valley when Jack discovers him. He then takes on the stage name of Dirk Diggler, joining the band of misfits starring in Jack’s films.

Compelling Female Characters

The female characters in this film aren’t just pretty faces and nude bodies used to titillate the audience. Of course, the actresses are beautiful, and we get realistic glimpses of how their jobs involve having sex on film, but their stories are an essential part of Dirk’s journey and the world created by PTM.

Julianne Moore is brilliant and fearless in her role as Maggie. It’s a crime that she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar for her performance. Maggie is a veteran actress in the adult business and lives in Jack’s house, taking on the role of “mother” to the younger talent. Meanwhile, her chosen profession and drug use has led her husband to win full custody of their child.

Heather Graham plays the beautiful Rollergirl, a high school dropout who enthusiastically embraces her role as the all-natural blonde bombshell of porn. Her nude scenes as she strips down to have sex with Dirk for the first time is an obvious fan favorite. Then the camera cuts to Jack as he calmly and approvingly watches his young talent have sex on the couch in front of him.

Rollergirl’s story takes a dark turn later, offering another example of the damage this industry does to some who get involved. Meanwhile, others fare better and find a path to escape the porn business. Becky Barnett (Nicole Ari Parker) finds a husband who runs an auto parts store, while Jessie (Melora Walters) gets pregnant with Buck (Don Cheadle) along with a lucky break in life.

Plenty of Laughs

Along with telling a coherent story, PTA injects a healthy dose of humor into the characters and story of “Boogie Nights,” making it come across as less pretentious and self-indulgent than his other films.

Dirk has a sweet disposition until fame and drugs take their toll, but he’s an uneducated idiot. He’s sidekick in Jack’s porn empire, Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly), is only slightly less clueless. Their “dumb and dumber” routine throughout the film leads to some hilarious scenes, starting with their first interaction by Jack’s pool. Their cringe-worthy scenes at the recording studio are priceless.

Don Cheadle’s Buck is also one of the funnier characters in the film as he ditches his black cowboy look for a ridiculous Rick James wig. Philip Seymour Hoffman is hilarious as Scotty every time he’s on the screen.

Rich Supporting Characters

There are so many layers to this film, and practically everyone in the supporting cast gets the opportunity to steal a scene or two with a memorable performance. Robert Ridgley is brilliant as The Colonel, the creepy financier of Jack’s film. The legendary Philip Baker Hall delivers an unforgettable scene as his character Floyd explains to Jack how the porn industry will be moving to videotape.

Iconic Soundtrack

PTA expertly creates the look at feel of the time period, punctuated by a fantastic soundtrack featuring pop, disco and soul hits from the late seventies and early eighties. One soundtrack was issued at the time of the film’s release, with another released the following year.

Several clips stand out. We’re introduced to Scotty with the playful “You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate as Philip Seymour Hoffman brilliantly and awkwardly reveals his man crush on Dirk when he meets him by the pool. Watch the scene here.

Later we’re introduced to more characters at the New Year’s Eve party at Jack’s home with the opening guitar riff from the iconic “Driver’s Seat” by Sniff ‘n’ the Tears. The song kicks off as Philip Baker Hall makes his entrance as Floyd in his powder blue suit and runs into The Colonel. The song continues in the background until we get the classic entrance of the Todd Parker character played by Thomas Jane. Enjoy the scene here.

One of the more bizarre scenes of the film has a young and skinny Alfred Molina singing along to “Jessie’s Girl” by Rock Springfield as Dirk and his clueless friends find themselves in a dangerous situation. The film could have gone off the rails here but PTA pulls it together and makes it all work.

PTA wraps things up in a neat bow at the end, making this by far his most enjoyable and compelling film.

The movie is blisteringly funny while at the same time painfully honest. It tells the story of a lesbian couple (Bening and Moore) who’ve been together for 20 years and raised two children (played Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) who are now at an age when they’re interested in meeting their sperm donor (Ruffalo). Human comedy ensues with unexpected results. “The Kids Are All Right” is one of the best movies of the year, and Cholodenko, whose previous films include “High Art” and “Laurel Canyon,” is a huge factor in its success. Now you might be thinking that a movie about two lesbians and their kids isn’t exactly what you’re looking for. If so, you’re exactly the person who should see this film, because it’ll change your ideas of what makes a family in this day and age. And it will make you laugh – loud and hard.

Cholodenko took some time out to talk to Bullz-Eye on the occasion of the film’s home video release and after some introductory chit-chat we discussed the lesbian right, gay porn, and new meanings for the word “tribe.”

Bullz-Eye: “The Kids are All Right” was like this oasis of reason in an ocean of CGI and fart jokes this past summer. Do you get frustrated when you look around see the types of movies that rake in the big bucks these days?

Lisa Cholodenko: I wish we would kind of go back to the time where there were more interesting, idiosyncratic human kinds of comedies and dramas, and not such the kind of broad and farcical, box office driven fare, but that’s where we are right now, so, I just accept it, and I’m glad that there’s space for films like this.

BE: Well, so am I. There was some fairly vocal criticism of the film from the most unlikely of places – the lesbian community. Where do you think that kind of outrage comes from and, outside of raising awareness for the film itself, does that kind of anger serve any worthwhile purpose for a thoughtful movie like this?

LC: I keep referring to them as the lesbian right (chuckling), and I think that in any kind of group there’s going to be a contingent of people that are more extreme in their views of things, and more politicized and so, I think there’s room for everybody, and I don’t have a problem with that. It’s gets a little tedious speaking to it – not to you – but when I’ve heard it in Q & A’s and stuff, but I’m sympathetic. There’ve obviously been no great representations of lesbians in cinema, or certainly there hasn’t been in a long time, and it’s kind of an old school doctrinaire, “Oh of course the lesbian goes off with a man.” But if you look at the film with any kind of care, it’s really not about that at all.

BE: No, no, it isn’t.

LC: She really goes off with her partner. So it gets a little knee-jerky and tedious for me, but I’m sympathetic that there’s no representation, and with starvation sometimes you get a lot of mixed feelings.

BE: Well, here’s a weird question, and you gotta help me out here, because it was the one thing in the whole movie that baffled me. Lesbian couples watching gay male porn to get in the mood. Is this common? Is this something that I’m just totally unaware of?

LC: You know, I don’t know because I’m not a social scientist. I just thought, you know, different strokes for different folks, and it’s always fascinating to find out what people do to turn it on. Stuart [Blumberg, co-writer of the movie] and I stumbled on that idea, and wrote a scene, and laughed and I said, “No, it’s too risqué,” and he said, “No it’s not. It’s funny. It’s great.”

BE: There’s no question it was hilarious – don’t misread me on that. The climax of the movie – which is played silently hollow, is so effective and moving and truthful. Anybody who’s ever been in a situation like that knows exactly how Nic [Annette Bening’s character] was feeling in that moment. How did you come to that place of “This is what we’ve got to do right here – not say anything”?

LC: It was one of those great moments with Stuart where we just wrote the scene and it came out of our brains very much like what we ended up filming. That beat where she comes back from the bathroom and discovered what she has, um, I don’t remember who said or who wrote it, but I think we both just knew instinctively that that’s a moment where there’s that complete isolation and silent horror. There was no question that she was gonna implode, she wasn’t gonna make a scene in front of her children, so what was she going to do with those feelings but go dark and silent? That resonated with both of us, so we just wrote it very specifically that the sound drops out like that.

BE: It was so beautiful. Really, really beautiful. Speaking of truths, really, the whole movie is littered with universal truths. My wife and I probably didn’t go into the movie thinking we’d see ourselves in this lesbian couple, and yet there were so many moments that reminded us of us. Was it important for you to reach as many people as possible with the film, instead of just crafting an indie arthouse film that would only appeal to a certain kind of audience?

LC: Yeah, I set out from the beginning to write something that was more commercial, that had a more universal kind of heartbeat, and that wasn’t rarified, or super political or politically correct. We didn’t want to make a film about the underdogs or the alienated family or whatever. We wanted to say “Here’s this couple who’s raised two kids, and they’ve been together for 20 years, and this is what happens with life and a marriage.” It doesn’t mean your marriage is over or it’s bad. This is what it looks like. Once we got into the groove of looking at those kinds of questions, and those kind of universal ideas, it was exciting to us, because then we broke out of a place that we didn’t want to be in anyway.

BE: To me, that’s kind of the brilliance of the movie, you know, unless you’re just the most closed-minded buffoon, if you’ve got some kind of family that you’ve put together over years and years, this has to resonate with you on some level. It’s very, very perceptive work.

LC: Thank you.

BE: I noticed in some of the extras on the Blu-ray that you tend to use the word tribe quite a bit instead of family, and that’s interesting. What’s the difference, if any, between the two words for you? Does saying tribe indicate something a little different, a little more modern, maybe?

LC: God, I don’t know – I don’t remember what I said on that! (both of us start laughing) I don’t know why I chose those words.

BE: It’s just interesting because to me a tribe sounds like something that’s more assembled, more modern. It just seems like a new word for the kinds of families that we do have today.

LC: Well, certainly with a gay family you’re putting it together rather than just stumbling into it. There’s a lot of conscious effort that goes into creating a family and keeping it together, but certainly the “creating it” part. I guess when I use the word tribe, I probably use it more casually than I’m saying right now, interchanging it with the word family just to spice it up. But I probably also meant that that’s their tribe – that’s the like-minded community of intimates that are primary in the film.

BE: Well I like it and I’m going to start using it, just so you know.

LC: Yeah.

BE: Just by sheer coincidence – even before I knew I was going to interview you – this past weekend I read the little essay you wrote for Bazaar. And I don’t even read Bazaar often, I don’t know why I was.

LC: Oh, yeah, yeah – about having our kid.

BE: I reread it last night and wondered, if in 15 years Calder decides to go find his sperm donor – how do you think you’ll deal with that?

LC: Um, you know he…he (giggles)…

BE: I’m sorry. Is that too personal?

LC: No, no, no, no! My partner and I are actually nothing like the people in the film, like Annette Bening’s character. We both feel that he should absolutely be raised in an environment of openness and clearness. He knows he has a sperm donor father, and it’s important to me and Wendy, too, that he feels we’re always behind him in his life so that when he turns 18 and he wants to reach out and try to make contact with that man who I’m so grateful toward, because we have a great kid – I’m all for it. I’m actually curious to meet him. I think it’s a good thing and I support it.

BE: I feel like I could talk to you for an hour about this movie, but I know time’s limited.

LC: Yeah, I think I’m getting the “one more question” vibe [from the publicist].

BE: Well, I don’t necessarily have any more questions, so I guess I’ll end this by saying that not only did I really love “The Kids Are All Right,” but also “Laurel Canyon” was a big movie for me, and I really hooked into that film.

LC: Oh, thanks. That’s nice to hear. It’s great to hear that at the end of the day.

BE: I usually go out to L.A. about once a year, and I have a certain ideas of what L.A.’s like, but that movie really changed the way I look at Los Angeles as a city. That and David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive,” for whatever that’s worth. For reasons I’m not even entirely sure of, those two movies just changed my perception of L.A. – in a positive way.

LC: Well, that’s good, some P.R. help. So that’s good.

BE: Well, that’s about all I got, but I would like to tell you that whatever you do in the future, please, please keep making movies, because we really, really need you.

LC: Oh, you’re a sweetheart. Thank you for all that. I really appreciate it.

BE: You are such a fantastic filmmaker, and I just wanna see you keep making movies forever.

LC: Well, we’ll talk again.

BE: We will.,

LC: Thank you so much for your time. Thanks again, Ross. Bye!

The crying hall of fame has just too members in my view and, oddly enough, both of them are named “Moore.”

Opening this Friday, “Dinner for Schmucks” borrows its premise and some of its plot from Frances Veber’s 1998 “The Dinner Game.” Paul Rudd co-stars as Barry, a rising L.A. executive who finds that entering his company’s upper echelon will mean participating in a competitive Dinner for Winners. All the guests are to bring an extraordinary person who has been unrecognized by society — in other words, a dithering idiot. The winner of the nasty game is the one whose guest is the most amusingly stupid.

Barry is initially appalled by the idea and assures Julie (Stephanie Szostak), his horrified art curator girlfriend, he’ll have nothing to do with it. On the other hand, he needs to pay for his Porsche and his absurdly large apartment at West Hollywood’s Sunset Tower Hotel (in real life, you’d need a billionaire’s wealth to afford that). It’s a choice between being nice and being unemployed and in debt. Then the fates seem to reward him when, driving through a quainted-up version of Westwood Village, he nearly runs over Tim Wagner (Carell), a clueless IRS employee and ultra-naive artist committed to his “mousterpieces.” Wagner, of course, turns out to be a goodhearted type whose attempts to help his new friend backfire in increasingly absurd ways. Fortunately, most of them are funny, particularly thanks to some outstanding and often completely unhinged supporting performances from Zach Galifianakis and Jemaine Clement of “Flight of the Conchords” as an absurdly pretentious and untalented, but hugely successful, artist on the make for Barry’s increasingly angry girlfriend and all other attractive women on the planet.

“Dinner for Schmucks” isn’t going to electrify cinephiles or become a staple of screenwriting seminars, but a couple of weeks back it had proven itself to be a very effective laugh-getting machine at a West L.A. screening. Therefore, full of a free breakfast, a selection of journos were in a pretty good mood for a morning press conference at the Beverly Hilton with a number of funny and/or talented people, including stars Carell and Rudd, supporting bad guys Bruce Greenwood (“Star Trek“) and Ron Livingston (“Office Space“) as well as director Roach and writers David Guion and Michael Handelman, who are about to become directors themselves with the film version of the BBC comedy, “Cruise of the Gods.”

The first question proved to be a starting point for some light shtick between Rudd and Carell, who have worked together previously to great comic effect in “Anchorman” and Carrel’s breakthrough comedy, “The 40 -Year-Old Virgin.”

So, what was the most challenging scene in the film, Mr. Carell?

“We shot a scene where Paul had injured his back. We shot it for about a day and a half, and I had to hug Paul, for a day and a half,” said Carrel.

“That’s challenging for anyone,” Rudd admitted.

“And to lift him,” Carell continued, “because he was giving me nothing.”

“No,” Rudd agreed. “The only way to sell it is to just go dead weight.”

“So,” Carell agreed, “that was probably the most physically challenging aspect of the movie. Terrible, terrible answer. Don’t write that.”

Perhaps feeling that it was maybe a little early yet for too much silliness, Rudd — who comes from a ‘real’ acting background but has an obvious gift for comedy — gave a serious answer. “It’s always challenging. Everything you ever work on is challenging. Just to show up and try be real and not look as if I’m playing at anything. Just try and be the character. It’s always work.”

So, would Paul care to elaborate on the challenges of being a straight man while Carell is having all the “fun” in a movie like “Schmucks”?

“It’s a challenge not to ruin the take by laughing. I didn’t rise to that challenge on many occasions…It’s weird, my definitions of ‘comedy’ and ‘drama’ or ‘straight man,’ all that kind of stuff, they’re all blurry for me. I don’t really think of it in those terms,” he said, talking about how the events of the film forced him to be “reactive” which he said can be not so easy to sustain for the course of an entire feature film. He likes to think “not so much in terms of jokes,” but more in terms of the character, Rudd said.

Then, the same questioner noticed some new facial hair on Rudd. “What’s with the beard?”

“I’m getting ready to start a movie on Monday.”

“That’s a lie,” Carell interjected. “He’s just doing it for fun.”

Rudd quickly changed his story. “I came in this morning at about 6:00 A.M. and applied it with spirit gum and hair from my back. It took about an hour. And it’s like, what’s going to be fun to wear in New York City summer heat?”

The next questioner asked if perhaps the issue of ruining takes might have arisen during Jemaine Clement’s hilarious straight faced bits. She wondered if the wacky but extremely self-serious character was inspired by anyone in real life.

“It is hard, Jemaine cracks me up. He got these guys laughing a little bit too,” said Roach. “We based the character a little bit on Matthew Barney [of the epic-length, famously disturbing “Cremaster” art film cycle] and a little bit on Peter Beard and a little bit the guy from Ashes and Snow [Gregory Colbert]. We mostly wanted to have a character who is so convinced not only that he was an artist in the most important sense of the word, but he was the best thing that ever happened to art and, really, the world… And also that he had to be convincing as a rival for Paul’s character’s girlfriend. Despite Jemaine’s character and vibe that he portrays on the ‘Conchords,’ I always thought that he was kind of hunky.”

What did the actors think about working with Clement? Had they ever bumped into him previously?

“I’d never met him before,” said Carell. “He’s fantastic. He’s a really good improviser in the sense that you never feel him going for a joke. You never get a sense that he’s waiting for his turn to say something or do something funny. He’s really just a part of the scene and always ends up making it better. He’s also a really fine actor. He committed to that character so completely. There was a sense of calmness about him and a sense of inner dignity to the character in the face of its absurdity which I just loved. He was a hard person to work with and not ruin takes because he’s so, so good.”

Rudd chimed in. “It’s funny in that it seems like it’s a character that’s broad in that his look is very defined. His style and vocation is such a specific thing, but he’s so good with subtlety. There were many, many moments when he would just kind of say something that wasn’t a joke but would just really make me laugh,” Rudd said. As an example, he referred to a line in the film when, for reasons too complicated or too silly to explain, his character is alleged to have gonorrhea and his utterly straightforward response, “I don’t have gonorrhea,” struck Rudd as funny on the set. (It is in the movie, as well.). “He’s weirdly soft-spoken about it. He’s good in everything.”

Then came the inevitable question for the actors about what attracted them to the project. (Just once, I would like to hear. “I needed the money. No, I’m not kidding. I need cash.” Most actors aren’t rich.)

Carell led the charge on this one. “Working with Jay and working with Paul, those were enormous factors for me. I liked the storyline too. I thought it was funny. It was a little weird. It had a heart to it. And I tend to like things that have a gray area to them. Like the character that Paul plays; here’s a guy who’s very conflicted. He’s not a bad guy but he’s at a moral impasse in his life. ..It actually said something very kind, ultimately.”

Rudd didn’t disagree. “Yeah, and the people involved. I thought the script was really funny. That was really it. It was kind of a no-brainer. I was so excited to get offered the part.”

Then, finally, the really fine and underrated, and usually non-comic, actor Bruce Greenwood spoke. Greenwood is having a career renaissance these days and is probably best known to contemporary audiences as Christopher Pike in the J.J. Abram’s “Star Trek” reboot. He has, however, been a busy and highly acclaimed working actor since the 1980s, notably delivering a truly world-class performance as a tax accountant dealing with an immense personal tragedy in Atom Egoyan, “Exotica.” He was also remarkably focused and memorable in David Milch’s misfired “John from Cincinnati.”

“For me it was working with Jay and Paul and Steve,” Greenwood said, praising the script and the approach. “When you have this premise of making fun of people, it has a chance of being mean-spirited [but] it has this big heart… that appealed to me on an emotional level as well.”

Ron Livingston, whose inoffensive looks and knack for putting on a vaguely insincere demeanor has put him in numerous regular guy and sleazy business guy parts, took a page from the Ringo Starr playbook. “I’m just happy to be here.”

After the laugh subsided Livingston decided to elaborate. “I think sometimes you have to try to imagine in your head what it’s going to look like. The great thing about this one was we’ve actually had a chance to see Steve and Paul work together [before] and it’s brilliant,” Livingston said. “There’s a comfort level there and a playfulness… I think Jay does a great job having character comedy meet physical comedy in a way that you don’t really give up one to jump into the other. I was just thrilled, actually, to be along for the ride.”

Then a journalist from Asia brought up the topic of both Steve Carell’s Emmy nomination and his recently announced decision to leave “The Office” once his contract expires at the end of the upcoming seventh season.

“I’ll let Jay [Roach] take this one,” Carell joked, but he eventually got around to the topic. His response, while sincere, won’t win any prizes for originality. “I always wanted to honor my contract and I felt like now is a good time for the character to move on and for me to move on personally. I want to spend more time with my wife and kids. That’s really the impetus behind that decision there.”

Paul Rudd, however, had the real bombshell. “And Steve will be playing for the Miami Heat next year.” (Yes, the press conference was the morning after LeBron James’ announcement.)

“Very exciting,” Carell added. “Scranton is burning my Jersey.”

Then, someone brought up theword “schmuck.” Now, for those of you who’ve only heard the world colloquially and assume it means nothing more than “idiot” or “fool,” the Yiddish word “schmuck” is the fairly precise Yiddish equivalent to “dick” in all its many meanings, other than as a nickname for “Richard.” It is also fair to add that the word actually derives from the German word for “jewel” — as in “family jewels” — and that Yiddish is very nearly a dead language, killed by the decision to make Hebrew Israel’s national language, and it’s been many decades since it’s been used in a sexual context by many people. A writer from a prominent Jewish publication, therefore, asked about how it ended up in the title.

Jay Roach took on the question. “The script was called that when it was first sent to me. For me, it’s kind of an ideal word for what the story is about. In modern usage it has two meanings. Like ‘don’t be a schmuck’ can mean ‘don’t be a jerk,’ which is what Paul Rudd’s character is going through and ‘don’t be an idiot’ which is what you think Steve Carrel’s character is going through… To me, it both is a funny word to say but it also resonated [with] what the two characters were about.”

The questioner responded that the offense some people might be taking was more of a generational thing, and asked if anyone involved with the film had received negative feedback from elderly Jewish relatives.

Paul Rudd seemed to think the question was intended strictly for him. “Go right to the Jew — you know, I was in schul on Saturday, and…” joked America’s reigning movie Jewish American Prince. “No, my grandfather used to call me a ‘schmuck’ all the time,” Rudd said.

After some difficulty to transcribe/describe silliness, Rudd continued. “I remember growing up, I’d say, ‘Oh, God, “putz” is such a funny word.’… I always thought like, ‘Oh, “putz” is an idiot. And I remember my dad saying, ‘Well, you know, actually a putz is a penis’ — what’s up with the all words by the way, for ‘penis’ — it always took on, I think, not so much a specificity but general ‘oh, you’re being an idiot.’… I know that there are some people, I read it too, that might take offense to the fact that it’s ‘Dinner for Schmucks.’ It wouldn’t have even crossed my mind.”

“Also, ‘Dinner for Wieners’ didn’t test well,’ added Ron Livingston.

Following a brief discussion of Rudd’s charter membership in the Judd Apatow stock company and how Seth Rogen had dubbed it “the Jew-Tang Clan,” it was on to less Hebraic matters. In particular, with Steve Carrel’s involvement in “The Office” winding down, would he be taking on projects that he was more directly involved with himself?

“I just completed a movie with Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore, that’s the first movie my production company’s producing. That’ll come out sometime next year,” said Carrel. “I hope that I’m able to start writing again once my tenure at ‘The Office’ is done.”

The next question was on the topic of Zach Galifianakis’s remarkable performance as Carrel’s coworker and nemesis. The questioner said he felt “it looked like Marlon Brando and Andy Kaufman going at it.”

“Marlon Brando and Andy Kaufman”? Carell interrupted. “I’m trying to figure out who’s who… Now I can’t get that combination out of my head. I want to see that movie,” Carell added, but then actually addressed the question about the hard to spell/pronounce Mr. G.

“He is intensely funny and his brain works a different way than most people, and I think that’s part of what makes him so great. [It’s] that his thought processes are very unique to him. He, too, I think is a really good actor because he comes in and he enters a scene as a character and he takes in his environment. He’s really committed to the character and not just to being funny or to think of funny things to say. Everything he says comes from within his character… He was really a joy to improvise with and act opposite.”

The writer then wanted to clarify that Carell was still going to be making movies, and not “going to work in his sister’s general store,” after finishing ‘The Office.'”

“I’ll only make ‘Office’ movies,” Carell joked.

Moving on, the next topic was the similarities and differences between “Dinner for Schmucks” and the more theatrical French film “The Dinner Game,” adapted by director Frances Veber from his own play. Jay Roach was quick to praise the prior film which, unlike “Schmucks,” does not include an actual dinner.

“It’s more ‘inspired by’ than ‘based on’ but it was a great hook… Frances is like the Mike Nichols of France. I’m sure he’d rather just be the Frances of France. He writes great farce, ‘La Cage Aux Folles,” “La Valise” and all these films. He’s a hero of mine and I felt lucky to get to be able to work on a story of his.”

And then the radio interviewer next to me was astute enough to address a question to Bruce Greenwood, asking him about the differences between doing a broad comedy like “Schmucks” as opposed to the sometimes deadly serious films he’s been best known for until recently. “Not that there weren’t some thigh-slappers in ‘Exotica,'” he added.

“But they were naked thighs,” Greenwood interjected, commenting on Atom Egoyan’s tragedy-laced 1994 drama set in a Toronto strip club. As for doing this kind of broad comedy, he apparently had a fairly hard time at first.

“I spent the whole first day just weeping into my handkerchief. I just couldn’t stop laughing…vIt was great fun to be around.”

But is the actor’s cliche that “dying is easy but comedy is hard” true?

“Yeah. I’m used to doing stuff where you say what’s in the script,” said Greenwood, getting a laugh. “The first couple of days I just watched these guys with my jaw on the floor and then Jay says, just go at it. See what happens. It was a lot of fun.”

A discussion with the writers followed regarding a key difference between the lead character in “The Dinner Game,” who starts out the film as fairly unsympathetic, and Paul Rudd’s more conflicted character, who desperately wants money and success but who is almost as appalled as he should be by the “Dinner for Winners.” Was it perhaps a studio decision to please the presumably more darkness-averse American audience?

The answer, we were told, was not really — at least not consciously. “It seemed a little bit more interesting to us if you could see both sides of his character, and if he at the start of the film was a little bit at war with himself,” said Michael Handelman.

“In the original, that character very much is sort of a jaded guy who you feel like has lived a sinful existence for a very long time. There’s something about Paul being a younger guy where we wanted to deal with someone who was at a turning point in his life,” said David Guion.

“Paul is really at a turning point in his life,” kidded writer Handelman. “We don’t know if the good or the bad Paul is going to win.”

“Bad Paul,” said Paul Rudd.

And then it was my turn to ask a question. Correctly noting that the movie involves an awful lot of extremely well-off characters but wrongly noting that the poorest person in the film drove a Porsche — I should have said the poorest male person not bearing a special invitation to the “Dinner for Winners” — I wondered how much our present economic morass was weighing on the minds of the creators.

“We definitely thought that it was opportune,” said writer Handelman, “to have them working at a hedge fund or a private equity [firm]”

“We actually talked to a number of people at hedge funds when we were writing the thing,” Guion added. “They were all extremely concerned that this would cast people in the financial sector in a negative light. That would be the end of it for them,” he said to some laughter.

Handelman chimed in, saying that would be doubly true if word got out that, “on top of everything else, [they] played games likes this.”

Then, I noted a scene in which Zach Galifianakis, as he’s practicing mind control over Carrel, briefly turns a bright beet red, returning to semi-normal right before our eyes. Was that as real as it looked?

“That was all Zach,” said Jay Roach. “That is just him losing himself in his belief in his ability to control somebody’s mind and putting every aspect of himself into it. The funny thing about that is when we sent it to the lab, and I just got involved in the color timing, they tried to time it out, they thought it was a mistake. So, I got it back and I said ‘What happened?’ they said, ‘We wanted it to match.’ I said, ‘No, no, no, that was real.’ There’s no digital effect. That is all just the very blood of Zach Galifianakis rushing to his face to show itself.”

The next questioner asked Steve Carell whether he got any “secret pleasure” from working with the stuffed mice and the amazing and rather beautiful “mousterpieces” created by his character (actually, veteran animators and artists, the Chiodo Brothers) which may be the single best aspect of “Dinner for Schmucks.”

“Not so secret. I was astounded by the detail in those mice dioramas,” Carell said. “The man hours [and] the attention to detail and the commitment to those dioramas, they were astounding. I think honestly things like that really help you with a character. Because, to sit in a room with all of those and look at how meticulously they’ve been put together really informs the characters a lot. It really tells you a lot about who this guy is …I was very thankful and grateful to [the Chiodos] for how exquisite those dioramas were.”

Did he ever find himself playing with them or dressing them in his spare time?

“I’d rather not go into the details of that,” Carrell said. “I do hope, at some point, to own one for my house. I don’t know whether it’s the Ben Franklin or the Evel Knievel but I would love to have a mouse diorama in my own home to display proudly.”

Then another questioner asked Paul Rudd about a scene requiring him to literally speak into actress Lucy Punch’s crotch, playing an inordinately determined past “Fatal Attraction”-style hook-up for his character.

“Into a cell phone? Speaking into a woman’s crotch? You’re asking me?” queried a concerned looking Rudd.

“She’s trying to get the first line of her story,” Carell sagely commented. “I didn’t go for the bait with dressing the mice. ”

Getting a bit more sincere, Rudd said “I was very nervous and uncomfortable… I actually turned the color of Zach Galifianakis.”

Shifting gears, what did the cast think of “The Dinner Game” as it compared to “Dinner for Schmucks”?

“Really, I approached this the same way I approached ‘The Office,” said Steve Carell. “I still haven’t seen the original ‘Office’ because I didn’t want to do an impersonation of Ricky Gervais. I still haven’t seen the French film because I didn’t want to have that inform what I was going to do with this one. I tried to look at it as a blank slate. I’d like to see it now that the work is done. I’ve heard only great things.”

“To prepare for this,” said Paul Rudd, “I watched the British ‘Office.'”

Then came the obligatory praise for the director who, as per Paul Rudd, really does come across like “a self-effacing guy” despite being married for quite some time now to Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles. “My wife’s really into Paul,” Roach added.

Seeing as “Dinner for Schmucks” is a remake, someone wondered how would Roach and company feel about having one of their movies remade?

“I would love to see a remake of ‘Austin Powers.’ Especially in a completely different culture. The Brazilian version of ‘Austin Powers’ or the Ukrainian version would be [great]. I would be so flattered if someone thought to do that.”

“I’ve had some I’d like to remake” said Bruce Greenwood, the highly experienced actor whose diverse credits include 1986’s “The Malibu Bikini Shop.”

Did anyone in the cast have the kind of unusual or extraordinary hidden talents that might get them invited to the Dinners for Winners.? Carell admitting to playing two very “unsexy” instruments — the baritone horn, a sort of “mini-tuba,” and the fife. Bruce Greenwood discussed his bowl-making hobby, which he said was not a joke, and Ron Livingston admitted to juggling “a little.” Paul Rudd demonstrated that he can do a strange but hard to describe thing with his tongue.

Then Jay Roach was asked about, wait for it, the state of comedy today and how it’s changed, and whether he felt a need for his comedies to have “morals.”

“I don’t know how much comedy’s changed. I grew up watching Woody Allen films. ‘Annie Hall’ sort of convinced me to go to film school. I remember how that film… how funny it was, obviously, but how it made comedy as a way of coping with heartache,” Roach said.

“I think that’s what attracted me to this story. It’s about a character who has coped with his own pain and separation from his wife, in a very unusual way, through his mice [dioramas]… It wasn’t so much meant to be a film with a moral as much as a film where you enjoyed watching how one person’s approach to life, which might seem off-center, odd, or idiotic, could actually inspire another person to get more in touch with their better selves. But [that’s] mostly just because the characters were struggling to find a way to be, in a funny way.”

*  I suppose the big news today is that it really appears as if there’s already an Edward Norton replacement after his departure as the Hulk from “The Avengers” was egregiously mishandled by Marvel’s Kevin Feige. The choice appears to not be Joaquin Phoenix but the first-rate, not nearly famous enough Mark Ruffalo. He is the deceptively low-key actor I’ve been rooting for since catching him in “You Can Count On Me” back in 2000. (It was my favorite movie of that year and also made me a life-long fan of Laura Linney.) Ruffalo is currently in the year’s probable indie-smash, “The Kids Are Alright.” As sussed out from various reports by Kevin Jagernauth of the Playlist, it appears he’s still in some pretty serious negotiations that are not yet really anything like a done deal. He’s a shrewd choice for Marvel and this would be a good way to salvage a thoroughly unfortunate situation.

* Joaquin Phoenix might not be the Hulk, but the probable mockumentary (or not) about him made by his brother-in-law, Casey Affleck, has been picked up by Magnolia. I’m not looking forward to the already infamous “Cleveland steamer” scene. Just FYI, much as I admire John Waters, “Pink Flamingos” is on my short “never see” list, but that infamous final scene is a lot worse, I suppose. I get ill just thinking about it.

* The fascinating outlandish career of arthouse poet turned stoner-action-comedy specialist David Gordon Green may take another fascinating turn if he really does remake Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” — which, I somehow managed to sit through some fifteen years or so back despite my squeamish/scaredy cat ways, because, among other reasons, it’s so freaking beautiful. Also, I’ve always had the hots for Jessica Harper.

* If you want to know who the best, most essential, and most thoughtfully cinephilish bloggers and blogs are, check out the terrific blogroll from the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Congrats to my old bloggy compadres Dennis Cozzalio, Kimberly Lindbergs, Farran Smith Nehme, and Greg Ferrera, among others, for making the prestigious list.

* Nathaniel Rogers didn’t get a mention, though he certainly deserves it. The openly actresexual blogger did, however, get a very nice interview with his idol, Julianne Moore, who I kind of idolize myself. More congratulations are in order.

* I suspect that those old Steve Reeves Hercules movies will wind up being a lot more watchable than whatever Brett Ratner makes of the mythical strongman. I’m sure he can’t top the Disney animated film, even if it wasn’t the greatest of the studio’s nineties animation output. Cue the “do you like to watch gladiator movies”  jokes.

* If you’re wondering why the post two posts below this one has no video, here’s why. Somebody let me know if there’s a new version up, since the whole thing is a bit of a legalish technicality.

* Note to my friend, Zayne: Yeah, I missed this reconstruction of a lost ultra-obscure exploitation gangster film tonight about kidnapping the Pope (and asking for a $1.00 from every Catholic in the world — though  these days I doubt they’d pony up). I’m therefore bummed.

* Alison Nastasi has an interesting response to a fairly thoughtful rant by Dustin Rowles on the controversy around the new cover art for the remake of another film on my probably never-see list, “I Spit On Your Grave.” The poster is obviously in horrible taste, but isn’t that kind of the point?

* Now that a fourth tape is out, I wonder if Mel Gibson will get the message and give up the drunk dialing.

* I’m confused. If the planned film with Jeremy Piven and Thomas Jane is in any way actually closely modeled on John Cassavettes’ “Husbands,'” as director Mark Pellington seems to say, then I don’t think it should be called a “thriller.”